“Cloud computing” refers to the access of computing resources and data via a network infrastructure, such as the Internet. The computing resources and data storage may be provided by linked data centers of the “cloud”. Each of the data centers may include a plurality of servers. The servers in a typical data center may provide computation nodes and storage nodes. Computation nodes provide data processing resources, while storage nodes provide data storage and retrieval resources. However, the computation nodes may occasionally use large amounts of storage capacity to perform computation operations. Thus, a data center may set aside a significant amount of reserve storage capacity for such occasions.
Further, the storage nodes generally store duplicate copies of the same data to guard against data loss due to hardware and/or software failure. As a result, the actual storage capacity of the storage nodes of a data center may be reduced. The need to set aside reserve storage capability and storage capacity loss due to redundant data storage may reduce the operating efficiency of a data center, as well as result in the need to build new data centers that consume additional energy, financial resources, and natural resources.